


Dimension's fucked.

by cry_ptid



Series: Ben's adventures with julie and the phantoms [1]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: ADSGDGDGH, Blood and Injury, Crack Treated Seriously, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, No Beta We Die Like Ben Hargreeves, No beta we die like Sunset Curve, ben has trauma, ben is kinda rude, ben is touchstarved, but hes in an alternate universe alone, reggie doesn't understand memes but hes trying, so i think we can forgive him for forgetting his manners, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29132292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cry_ptid/pseuds/cry_ptid
Summary: Ben doesn't go into the light.(has been edited slightly!!!)
Series: Ben's adventures with julie and the phantoms [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137737
Comments: 23
Kudos: 79





	Dimension's fucked.

**Author's Note:**

> dont ask me what this is because I have NO fucjing clue adsgdh
> 
> its loosely based off of this fanart i saw on tumblr that was rlly cool tho: https://kidovna.tumblr.com/post/639063947905990656/this-is-self-indulgent-but-cute-leather-jacket
> 
> OH also I have no clue how ghosts work in tua timeline, so for the sake of the plot Ben didn't age after his death and still looks 16 (this is literally just bc it's easier to write ngl)!!! 
> 
> anygays hope u enjoy :D

Sometimes Ben wondered what it would have been like to live a normal life. 

What it would have been like to not have Reginald as a Father; to not have had his life planned out for him; to not have had a power that quite literally ate him up from the inside. 

To be free to do what he pleased when he wanted, _to be free._

He tried not to think about it too much, there was no point dwelling on what could have been after all, but it was hard not to when even in his death, he had to put up with so much bullshit. 

Like when Five had fallen through a portal in his thirteen year old body, raving about how there was going to be an apocalypse in eight days; or right now, standing in the middle of the street that definitely was not the light he was supposed to go into, after being locked up in a dark room for fuck knows how long.

"Well," Ben sighed, flopping down on the nearest bench, "I'm so fucked."

"Aw man I get that," a dude to his left (who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere!?) exclaimed, nodding understandingly, "I mean uh, mood. I'm using that correctly right? Flynn taught me it so I'm not entirely sure."

The boy trailed off, muttering to himself as if he didn't think that Ben could hear him. And Ben, being the charismatic, smooth conversationalist that he is, just stared at him, eyes wide and mouth open.

How the fuck could he see him!? Was he alive again? Ben looked down at his blood stained jacket and shook his head, that couldn't be it. So did that mean that he was a ghost? Ben looked back up at the boy, who was now looking at him in shock.

"You can see me!?" They both asked at the same time.

Well, at least it wasn't just Ben who found this weird.

"Wait," the boy said before Ben could even open his mouth, "so you're a ghost too!? That's awesome!"

"Well I wouldn't call being dead awesome, but yeah I'm a ghost," Ben took this moment to observe the boy- ghost- in front of him. He looked around his age, if not maybe a year or so older, with unstyled, dark hair and a silver helix piercing on his left ear. He was obviously trying to go for a brooding aesthetic (with the flannel, leather jacket, doc martens and eyeliner) but the puppy dog smile he was currently sending his way ruined it completely. Meeting his eyes once again, Ben was met with a wink but just stared back, deadpan.

"So what's your name bro? I'm Reggie but all my friends call me R-dog."

Ben snorted and shook his head, "Dude we met less than five minutes ago and even I know that nobody calls you that."

"Aww," he pouted at Ben slightly, "Well it was worth a try I guess." 

Ben hummed as Reggie looked at him expectantly. 

"What?"

"Well usually when someone tells you their name you tell them yours," Reggie smiled widely despite Ben's lack of manners.

"Ah shit, right, I'm Ben," he held out his hand for Reggie who shook it vigorously.

"Ben," he repeated, "that's a nice name. I'm guessing you're new around here." 

Ben chuckled and scratched his cheek, "Yeah you could say that. I'm from New York."

"New York!? Jeez how did you find the energy to poof all the way over to LA?"

Ben blinked, "Uhh poof? And this is _LA!?"_

Reggie chuckled, "Yeah, sorry, this must be a lot for you to take in, just having come back from the dead and all."

"Back from the dead. Right. Yeah. That's uhh, that's definitely what I am," Ben said, doing awkward finger guns at Reggie to try and hide the fact that he had no fucking clue what was happening. 

"Mmhm, the life of a ghost amirite? Or, well, not exactly the life I guess."

Ben snorted, "That was so bad."

"Oh please, just admit that I'm punny."

"If I weren't already dead that bad joke would've killed me," Ben groaned as Reggie burst into a fit of giggles.

"Yeah, yeah, I know _I'm_ hilarious. But what about you man, what's your deal? How did you get here? Were you summoned like we were? At least I think we were summoned I don't really know the science behind it..."

Ben sighed and wringed his fingers, "Honestly? I have no fucking clue how I got here. One minute I was uh, hugging my sister, and the next I was in the middle of the road, almost getting run over by an icecream truck." 

Reggie turned and placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly. 

"That's rough buddy," he said with so much sympathy that Ben couldn't help but burst out laughing. 

"Fucking hell," Ben managed to wheeze between spurts of laughter, "When did you die? _The 60's?_ " 

"1995 actually," Reggie sulked, crossing his arms over his chest defensively, which just made Ben laugh more.

"Hey! I was trying to be nice, it's not my fault I'm not caught up with me me culture or whatever." 

_"Me me culture-"_ Ben doubled over laughing again, stopping abruptly when his stomach churned unpleasantly. 

The last time his stomach had churned like that was when Klaus had summoned him and- 

"Yeah well, at least I'm not dressed like an emo," Reggie remarked, drawing Ben's attention away from his _unsavoury_ memories.

"Yeah well where I come from ghosts can't change clothes."

"Whatttt? Ghosts can't change clothes in New York!? Wack." 

Ben hummed, wondering whether or not it was just the distance between New York and LA that made such a difference.

"Hey sorry to ask but do you have a phone? I kinda need to check something."

Reggie raised an eyebrow slightly, "Nah dude I don't, but if you really need one I know a friend who does. She's called Julie and she's really nice. She's actually the one who summoned us here from the black room after 25 years lol."

"Wait," Ben chose to ignore the fact that Reggie said lol out loud, "what? What do you mean black room?"

"Yeah y'know? The room you go to when you die? It felt like we'd been there for a few minutes but then we came back down to Earth and Julie showed us the date and it was so weird man. Alex was so pissed that he'd been crying for 25 years, eventhough me and Luke both pointed out that he is a very emotional person."

"So I wasn't the only person to go there?" Ben sighed in relief, "Thank fuck, I genuinely thought that it was hell and I was being psychologically tortured or something." 

"Nah don't worry, I'm pretty sure it's a universal ghost experience. At least that's what I got from me, Luke, Reggie, Alex, Willie, and now you!"

"That's pretty condemning evidence," Ben said sarcastically, but Reggie just nodded. "How far away is this Julie girl?"

"Oh she's not far!" Reggie said enthusiastically, "We can just poof over there, it'll only take a second."

"Right," Ben stood upright once again, "and how do I do that?"

"Oh," Reggie chuckled slightly, "Well, you kind of just imagine where you wanna go and then...go there? It's a bit hard to explain."

"But you can do it right?"

Reggie smiled mischievously and poofed beside him, "Yes sir."

Ben rolled his eyes, "So you can just take me with you then."

"Uhhh, sure?"

"You don't sound very confident."

"Yeah well uh," Reggie scratched his cheek nervously, "I've never really done it before but HEY it's worth a try right?"

Ben sighed for what seemed like the thousandth time in five minutes (but was only actually the first) and simply clasped Reggie's hand in his own.

Reggie stared at him for a second before squeezing his eyes closed, his face twisting in a way that Ben thought must hurt, and then the bustling streets of LA were gone, replaced by the sound of drums and the view of a large house.

"Yes!" Reggie punched the air, "I did it!"

Ben looked at him amused, "Nice, now where's Julie?"

"Right through here!" Reggie said, practically dragging Ben through the double doors of the garage.

The first thing Ben noticed upon entering was the chairs on the ceiling because _who the fuck has chairs on their ceiling!?_ Ben thought it kind of defeated the whole point of chairs but kept quiet as the music slowed down, and all eyes were on him.

"Hey Reg," the blonde boy behind the drums greeted, before turning his attention to Ben, "Who's this?"

"This," Reggie put an arm round his shoulder which Ben begrudgingly let stay there, "Is Ben! He's kinda confused and needs to borrow Julie's phone."

"Uh who?" The girl- who he guessed was Julie- asked, looking straight through him.

"Ah I forgot that you can only see us," Reggie chuckled slightly.

"Wait she can see you? Like she can see ghosts?" For a second Ben thought about Klaus and whether Vanya had managed to pass on his message, or whether he had managed to stay sober enough to summon Dave. He pushed the thoughts away.

"Yeah, but only us, it's kinda we- uhh wack! It's kinda wack!"

Julie huffed amusedly, "Right, so why does he need to borrow my phone again?"

The ghosts all turned to him in question.

"Because I need to search whether me and my family exist in this universe," he said simply.

"Because-" Reggie started to relay back, but then paused "Wait WHAT!?" 

"What do you mean by 'exist in this universe'? There's only one universe man!" The blond drummer- who Ben guessed was the famous, sensitive Alex- insisted, looking slightly queasy.

"Dude with all due respect, we're literally ghosts. Fucked up timelines aren't the weirdest thing going on here. Now can you _please_ ask Julie if she's heard of the Umbrella Academy?"

The guitarist, who seemed to be the one holding the braincell at that particular moment, asked Julie, who shook her head.

"No, sorry. I'll Google it though, just to check," She said, extracting her phone out of her back pocket and unlocking it.

Ben moved from standing next to Reggie and hovered over her shoulder. There was nothing. 

"Shit."

Ben didn't know how it was possible, he didn't know why he'd travelled here or whether interdimensional travel was something he could do on a whim, but he wasn't in his own universe and that- well that was fucking terrifying. 

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, fuck, shit!"

He could feel his hands shaking and stomach lurching, and for a second he was back on that day, in that mission, bleeding out alone, screaming, _dying._

"Woah okay," a voice cut through the sudden fog that had clouded his mind, "Breathe in for seven, hold for three, out for eight dude."

The boy kept on chanting that, reminding Ben to be breathe calmly and soon enough the air slowly but surely returned to his lungs.

"Thanks," Ben said once his breathing returned to normal pace.

"No problem," Alex, who ben now realised was the one guiding him through the breathing exercises, replied, "are you alright?"

Ben laughed.

"I don't know. Five was always the one who knew about all this dimension, timeline, travel shit."

"Dimension...travel...right, okay," the blond started pacing in front of Ben, looking slightly overwhelmed (not that Ben could blame him.)

"Wait, Five? Someone named their child Five? That's weird," Luke said, frowning slightly.

"You have no idea man, Dad did it with all of us. I was number Six."

All of them- minus Julie, who was attempting to follow along but just looked kind of confused- turned to him in horror.

"What?" Reggie asked, "Your Father named you...numbers? Is that, like, normal in your universe?"

"No but he was a dick, and he was rich, so everyone turned a blind eye to it."

"That's fucked up," Reggie and Luke said at the same time, high fiving eachother as Alex sighed.

"Yeah," Ben said, trying to hide his amusement at Reggie and Luke, "Anyway I should probably get going, gotta try and find some interdimensional portal or some shit." 

"Already?" Reggie looked up and pouted, "but you just got here man! Why don't you let loose, have some fun with us?" 

"Yeah, make the most of this universe bro!" Luke added on, smiling widely at him.

Ben had a hunch that they didn't get new ghost friends often.

"I don't know-"

"Well at least let us get you new clothes dude, no offence but the blood stains just aren't working it for you."

Ben shook his head in disbelief, "You guys are fucking weird."

"You have no idea," Alex said, rolling his eyes fondly as he grabbed a box full of clothes from the balcony.

As they all argued over what clothes would look better on him, Ben wondered if this was what family was supposed to be like.

**Author's Note:**

> bully me on tumblr: @nickalicious


End file.
